The Warlock's Companion wisoh-9 Read online

  The new brain was wasted.

  So, Jose thought, was his job. He stared at the screen, feeling numb.

  Chapter 1

  "All right, I'll bite—why do we have to take six packs? We could just leave the clothes in the drawers and teleport clean outfits to us every morning."

  " 'Tis not right to misuse our powers thus," Gwen said primly. " 'Twould be wrong of us to set so poor an example for the children—and 'twould make us, too, slothful."

  "And, Papa," said Magnus, "it doth take some effort. Wouldst thou wish to labor so, when thou art but newly waked, every morn?"

  "Frankly, I was planning to," Rod said, "and I'd rather do that than carry a pack twenty miles. Still, your mother is right—we should save magic for the things we can't do by ordinary means. Oh, I can see making the pots vibrate at a supersonic frequency to shake off the dirt, because we didn't want to wash them." He swung about to glare at Geoffrey. "Get that gleam out of your eye! It's bad enough watching you clear the table by telekinesis!"

  Geoffrey tried to glower, but he was feeling too ebullient, and had to make do with a mischievous grin. " 'Tis far more fun, Papa, and faster too, though 'tis as much work. Where is the harm in it?"

  "It's like bragging," Rod explained. "You're showing off—and if a non-esper was around to see it, it would make him furiously jealous. Of such things are witch-hunts born."

  "Then wherefore dost thou allow it, Papa?" Geoffrey asked.

  "Because the non-espers aren't around, and it's good practice for you—you're each increasing the number of things you can lift at one time, every day."

  "Let us hear some words of sympathy for the poor woman who must needs watch thee, and catch the one-too-many thou dost ever let slip," Gwen reminded.

  Cordelia flung her arms around her mother. "Ah, poor dame, who must ever ward us from our own foolishness! Yet 'tis good of thee, Mama, to aid us in our play!"

  "Aptly said." Gwen smiled, amused. "I thank thee, daughter." She looked up at Rod. "Yet they have each proved their ability to whisk things to themselves by thought."

  "I suppose they have," Rod sighed, "so there's no point in not packing the clothes. But it always makes such turmoil at the last minute."

  " 'Always'?" Magnus grinned wickedly. "When have we e're gone on holiday aforetime, Papa?"

  "Well, there was the trip up into Romanov…"

  "To spy out an evil sorcerer, as it eventuated," Gwen reminded him.

  "And there was that ocean cruise, where we were teaching you kids how to make a ship sail…"

  "… And a storm came up, and blew us to that isle where the wicked magician did seek to brew magics that would enslave the beastmen," Gregory reminded him.

  "Well, then, there was that little educational trip south, to check on the source of those funny stones you kids had found…"

  "Which ended in the discovery of evil magic worked unwittingly," Cordelia reminded him.

  "It was only the peasant who was unwitting of it, dear, not the futurians behind him."

  "Yet 'twas scarcely restful," Geoffrey pointed out. Then he grinned. "Though we did take some pleasure in it."

  Cordelia's eyes lighted, and she began to dance, remembering.

  "Enough," Rod commanded. "I'll never trust music again."

  "In that case," Fess's voice murmured in his ear, "you should be all the more willing to take your clothes in packs."

  Rod frowned. "Any particular reason for eavesdropping? You're supposed to be chomping your oats in the stable, like a good horse! Or a real one, at least."

  "No non-espers are watching inside the stable, Rod—though I am tempted to think you are being rather mulish when it comes to bearing your pack."

  Rod winced. "All right for you, steel steed—just for that, you get to carry them when we get tired!"

  "Then 'tis agreed we are to bear packs?" Cordelia asked.

  Rod stilled, his mouth open.

  "Well, 'tis done." Gwen buckled the last strap, hefted the pack, and tossed it to him. "Let us away, husband."

  Rod reined in just before they went into the trees and turned to look back at their house. It had been a cottage once, but you couldn't call it that any more—they'd added on too many rooms. Or the elves had, for them.

  " 'Tis secure, husband," Gwen said softly.

  "Come, Papa! Away!" Cordelia tugged at his arm.

  "You need not worry about a national emergency occurring in your absence, Rod," Fess's voice murmured inside his ear. "The Royal Coven will find you in seconds, if anything is amiss."

  "I know, I know. But I didn't check to make sure the fire was out…"

  "I did, Papa," Magnus said quickly.

  "… And the doors were locked…"

  Cordelia closed her eyes for a moment, then looked up and smiled. "They are, Papa."

  "… And the cupboards were closed…"

  Gregory gazed off into space, then said, "One was open, Papa. It is closed now."

  "And if there is aught else amiss, the elves will set it to rights," Gwen said firmly, taking him by the arm.

  "None will seek to enter, sin the whole countryside do know a legion of elves doth keep watch o'er it," Gregory assured him.

  Gwen nodded and said softly, "Come away, husband. Our home will be safe the whiles we are gone."

  "I know, I know. I'm just a worrywart." But Rod gazed at the little house a moment longer, smiling ever so slightly. Gwen looked up at his face, then turned to gaze at the cottage with him, letting her head rest against his shoulder.

  Finally, Rod turned to smile down at her. "We haven't done badly, have we?"

  Her eyes glowed up at him, and she nodded. "Yet 'twill bide, and await our return. Come away, husband, and let the poor house rest."

  "Thou art silent, my lord," Gwen noted.

  "Is it all that unusual?" Rod looked up in surprise.

  "Well, nay," Gwen said carefully, "yet it doth usually betoken…"

  "You mean the only time I shut up is when I'm surly."

  "Nay, I had not said…"

  "Actually, I thought I was a pretty good listener."

  "Oh, thou art, thou ever art!" Gwen clasped his hand, where it held the reins in front of her. "When I have need, thou art ever ready to hearken! Yet I do feel lorn, when thou dost lose thyself in thoughts I ken not."

  "Silly goose! Come, share my silence awhile!" And his arms tightened around her.

  So she was quiet, leaning back against him, watching the children as they swooped and soared over the fields along the roadside; their laughter came to her like the chiming of wind-bells on the breeze. Then she looked up at the forest looming before them and said, "I do, my lord—yet I know thy thoughts are not of me."

  It took a second before she heard his gentle laugh. "Are you so selfish, then, that you can never spare my mind for other matters?"

  She heard the humor, and relaxed a bit. "Ever, though I do rejoice to hear them—yet there's thought, and there's brooding. Where do thy dark thoughts stray, my lord?"

  Rod sighed. "To the past, my dear. Just trying to reckon how long it's been since I had a real, genuine vacation. Of course, while I was a bachelor, I wound up with a lot of free time between jobs—but those weren't vacations, they were bouts of periodic unemployment. Does our honeymoon count?"

  Gwen smiled, and nestled back against him more snugly. "Mayhap, though we had great tasks indeed before us that fortnight, coming to know one another in a new and wondrous way. Yet there was the score of months thereafter, when thou wert estranged from the King and Queen, whiles I did carry Magnus and thou didst build our cottage…"

  "Yeah, and the elves showed me how. I still think they did more of the building…"

  Gwen hurried past that part; no point in telling him what had really held the stones up while the elves finished setting them. "… And that first year of his infant life, 'til Their Majesties had need of thee again, and sought to heal the breach."

  "I'm the one who did the healing, as I remember it;
they just found a job for me. And it seems as though they've kept it up; even when the big fights are over, they find these little informational trips for me to make, or need my advice about so-and-so's new idea…"

  "Mayhap a part of it is that we do abide close by them."

  Rod sighed. "Yeah, maybe we do need a change of scenery to really relax." He looked up about himself, somewhat surprised. "And it looks as though we've had one. When did we come into the forest?"

  Broad branches spread a canopy above them, stemming from tall old trees, foot-thick and rough-barked, with here and there a yard-wide veteran soaring up into the dim, dark greenery above—a murmuring roof, lanced by shafts of light so pale as to be almost silver. They gazed up, exalted, feeling their souls expand in the openness…

  Until a four-foot body shot through a beam, laughing in delight while a half-grown juggernaut speared after him on a broomstick, shouting happy predictions of dire doom.

  "Children!" Gwen cried, and Geoffrey jerked to a halt in midair, then swerved over to the nearest tree. Cordelia dropped to the ground, trying to hide her broomstick behind her back, while the elm next to her brother seemed to waver, then solidified again, a bit wider than it had been—and Geoffrey was nowhere to be seen.

  "Nay, then, I ken thy presence," Gwen said in tones that evoked dread, "and thou knowest thou hast gone against the rule. Come out from that elm where thou dost hide."

  "He could not help it, Mama!" Cordelia cried. "I did spring upon him and…" She hushed and bit her lip at a glare from Gwen.

  "Thy sister's intercession will not save thee," Gwen informed the elm, "for thou hadst no need to fly an thou didst wish to flee. Come out!"

  The silence stretched to the point of snapping, and Rod was just opening his mouth to point out that, after all, nobody had been hurt, and it wasn't really all that great an infraction (though he knew he shouldn't), when Geoffrey saved him by stepping out from the tree. His head was down and his shoulders hunched, but he was there, and the tree was slender again. Rod swung down from Fess's back, bracing himself for a shouting match—then decided to let Gwen start it. He was tired.

  Gwen sat on her high horse, glaring down.

  Geoffrey glowered back up at her.

  Gwen's face was stone.

  Geoffrey held his glare, but began to fidget.

  Gwen waited.

  "Well, then, I did wrongly!" Geoffrey burst out. "Thou hast told us time and again not to fly in a forest, and I disobeyed!"

  "A good beginning," Gwen said, with an air of finality.

  Geoffrey glowered up again, slowly wilting. Finally, he dropped his gaze and muttered, "I am sorry, Mama."

  "Better," Gwen pronounced. "And wilt thou do it again?"

  "Nay, Mama."

  "Wherefore?"

  "For that thou hast said so."

  "Nay! Though 'twould be good, 'tis not enough! Wherefore have I forbade thee to fly in a wood?"

  "For that I might dash out my brains 'gainst a tree trunk," Geoffrey muttered. Then he glared up at her again. "Yet I never have!"

  Gwen only stared.

  "Oh, aye, there was that time two years agone, when I did knock myself senseless." Geoffrey dropped his eyes again. "And three years agone, when I came home quite dazed—yet I was little then!"

  "And hast better aim now, surely. Nay, now thou'lt strike squarely on the center of thy crown."

  "I'll not strike at all!" Geoffrey's jaw jutted. "I am more practiced now, Mama!"

  "Yes," Rod agreed, "he's gotten so good at it that now he can flatten his head completely."

  "I shall not! I shall slip 'twixt the trees like a sky-borne eel!"

  "Quite a vision, that." Rod imagined a flock of flying eels, wriggling their way across the heavens. "But with all those eels, wouldn't it be a little dangerous for you?"

  Geoffrey rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Canst thou never be serious, Papa?"

  "Thou wouldst not wish him to be," Gwen assured the boy.

  But Rod shrugged. "I'm willing." He pointed a finger at Geoffrey. "Just for that, you can walk all the way to the castle."

  Geoffrey glared at him, and Rod felt a surge upward. In the split second before it could happen, though, he thought downward. Geoffrey frowned as though something were wrong; his face tightened with effort. Rod felt the boy's power of levitation pushing against his own telekinetic force, and pressed harder. Then Gwen dismounted, and he felt her effort join his. He eased up.

  But Geoffrey didn't. His face reddened; his shoulders hunched with the effort.

  Gwen leaned back against Rod, showing not the slightest sign of strain.

  Geoffrey abandoned the effort, foreboding shadowing his gaze. "Thou dost conspire against me!"

  "No, we just agree on the rules and the punishments."

  " 'Tis even as I've said." Geoffrey gave them his best glower, or tried to. He couldn't simply capitulate, of course. Rod understood that, and allowed him his face-saver.

  "It is indeed—but it does let you know what happens if you disobey."

  "Didst thou never disobey when thou wast small?" Geoffrey squalled.

  Rod reddened. "That's beside the point—and that's enough nattering about it, too. Come on, let's go."

  He turned away, shouldering through the brush. Gwen watched him go in mild surprise, then turned back to her children with a slight smile and a nod of the head. "Come, then. Thou hast heard."

  They followed her away through the trees, Cordelia and Gregory now perched on Fess's back.

  "There could have been worse punishments," Cordelia ventured.

  "Oh, he still!" Geoffrey snapped. " 'Tis not the effort doth chafe me."

  "Nay, 'tis the shame," Magnus agreed. "Yet there's naught to rue in giving respect to thine elders."

  "Including thee, belike?" Geoffrey said, with scorn. "Nay, I wager that Papa was mindful of enduring just such shame as this! Didst thou not see him redden when I did ask?"

  "I did," said Magnus, with a wicked grin. "Nay, I do wonder what naughtiness he did recollect?"

  They were all silent for a minute, imagining calamities.

  "Fess would know," Gregory said suddenly.

  "Aye, thou wouldst!" Geoffrey turned to Fess with a glint in his eye. "Nay, tell! What did chance when Papa did disobey Grandpapa?"

  "That is his tale to tell, not mine," the robot said slowly.

  "Oh, come, Fess!" Cordelia pleaded prettily. "Canst thou not give but a hint?"

  "Your father's personal matters are confidential, children." Robots are immune to charm.

  "But a clue," Magnus said, "is not telling."

  "My programming does not allow disclosure of classified materials," Fess said sternly.

  They were silent again, brains whirling in an attempt to bypass the program.

  "Yet thou art free to tell us aught of thine own past," Gregory said.

  Fess was silent a moment, then said, "I am, and will speak to you gladly of the history of your House and of your ancestors…"

  "Only of our father," Gregory said quickly. He'd heard Fess's lectures before. "Canst thou not tell what thou didst when he did disobey?"

  "Certainly not! At any point at which my own actions became involved in your father's personal matters, even my own memories become confidential!"

  "I must learn Cobol," Gregory sighed.

  "Wherefore wouldst thou wish to make their acquaintance?" Geoffrey frowned up at him. "Kobolds are vile creatures!"

  "He speaks of the speech, not the speaker," Fess explained.

  Geoffrey stared. "How… ?"

  " 'Tis wizards' talk," Magnus said airily. "Of greater moment is thy past, Fess."

  "You will not desist, will you?" Fess sighed. "Forebear the attempt, children—I shall not disclose your father's secrets, either accidentally or deliberately."

  "Yet thou hast said thou wilt tell us of thy deeds," Magnus reminded. "Hast thou never disobeyed, Fess?"

  Geoffrey glared at him in exasperation, but Gregory waved him
back, eyes on Magnus. Geoffrey frowned up at him, but his frown turned to a stare as understanding dawned. He began to grin.

  "Your question may be interpreted as referring to an action counter to my programming," the robot said slowly, "and in those terms, I must answer, 'No. I have never acted in violation of my program.' "

  Geoffrey slapped his thigh in exasperation, but Gregory asked, "Yet what of the words of thy master? Didst thou never work counter to his commands?"

  Fess was quiet long enough for Geoffrey to perk up again. Finally, the robot admitted, "There have been a few instances in which my owner's orders contradicted my program, yes."

  "Then thou didst disobey!" Geoffrey crowed.

  "Only to obey a higher authority," Fess said quickly. "Disobedience is not to be done at one's own whim, children."

  "At whose whim is it, then?" Cordelia asked.

  Fess emitted a burst of static, his equivalent of a sigh. "My basic program was designed by Peter Petrok, children, but it was tested, revised, retested, and finally approved by his section chief, then by the Vice President for Programming, by the President of Coherent Imperatives, Limited, and finally approved by a unanimous vote of the Board of Directors."

  Geoffrey stared, somewhat stunned.

  "Thus, in answer to your question," the robot went on, "disobedience is not done at anyone's whim, but at the considered, carefully weighed opinions of a group of responsible individuals, acting upon thorough evidence and elaborate validation, in accordance with well-established principles."

  The children were silent, overawed.

  Then Magnus ventured, "Wherefore was such a gamut needful?"

  "Because a robot could do a great deal of damage, if adequate safeguards were not built into its programming," Fess answered. "You have seen the occasional, restrained attacks I have made in defense of your father, your mother, and yourselves, children. Imagine what I could do if I had no inhibitions at all."

  "Thou wouldst be havoc infernal," Geoffrey said instantly, eyes wide. "Sweet Heaven, Fess! Thou couldst lay waste all of Gramarye!"

  "That is a warranted conclusion," Fess agreed, "and I am only a general purpose robot, children, not specialized for warfare."